Gonna Miss This?

What a busy week. On the weekend, we celebrated Joe's birthday early by feasting on some good BBQ, and Mom made an amazing red velvet cake (I'm seriously still thinking about it).

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Joe and to Susan today (and my college roommate Carrie)!! Zoey also had her 11th birthday this week, and she got her own cake.

This week was #15. I'm starting to show just a bit. I notice it at least. But no one's said anything yet.

Baby now measures about 4 inches long, crown to rump, and weighs in at about 2 1/2 ounces, about the size of an apple. Baby's busy moving amniotic fluid through the nose and upper respiratory tract, which helps the primitive air sacs in the lungs begin to develop. Legs are growing longer than arms now, and baby can move all joints and limbs. Although eyelids are fused shut, baby can sense light. If I shine a flashlight at my tummy, for instance, baby's likely to move away from the beam. There's not much for baby to taste at this point, but taste buds are forming.

I should start noticing baby move between weeks 16-20. That'll be exciting; I'm probably looking to that the most about being pregnant.

Just as I think I'm feeling a little more energetic, I feel pretty exhausted again. Especially Monday nights after GOTR coaching; whether or not I'm leading, it just seems to take everything out of me. Tuesday and Wednesday, I had to go to Eugene for a really quick, jam-packed trip to my office to meet with clients. Every moment was filled up but I managed through the day without a nap, and after dinner with clients, still managed to go hang out with Elizabeth (my friend/colleague/boss) and her family who I haven't seen in a bit. But by the time I got home Wednesday evening, I was pretty much just wasted.

I also found out this week, after an 8-week wait, that I failed my Certified Meeting Professional exam. Aside from this being expensive and embarrassing, I also feel really discouraged because I had thought I'd done pretty well on it. I read everything via a study course that I worked on for about 5 months and I studied quite a lot during the week before the exam, including two practice exams on which I thought I'd done well enough. But the study course ended being a bit different than the actual exam. Different organizations but it's the endorsed study course. Still, their practice exams aren't based off the actual exam and I think the questions they asked led me to study things that weren't actually asked on the real exam, whereas I didn't go back and study some other areas because it seemed I had those down well enough. Apparently not. It also sucks because they convert the scores to some scale, so I don't even know how many I got wrong, just how much I missed passing in the scale, and an idea of the general areas in which I did not pass- Risk Management, Site Management and something else. To me, this seems really unhelpful in thinking of how to re-study to take this damn test. Anyhow. It sucks. I'm the first one in my office (of about 4 people working on it) to take the test. I can't tell you the last time I failed a test... maybe 11th grade Adv. Pre-Calc? I'd feel like giving up but I've already spent SO much time studying and so much of my business's money, so now I have to pass. Luckily my boss was supportive. I'm the first one in our office to ever attempt it so he just said I was our guinea pig and to take another stab at it. Hopefully I can take the Nov. exam.

Thursday and Friday, Matt and I drove to Boise for the Boise State vs BYU game. This was another re-creation; we went to Boise to see them play OSU back in 2010 when we were first dating. Look how cute we were back then...

2010

The drive there wasn't too bad (6 hrs); we had nice conversations; I introduced Matt to "This American Life," my fav and only radio program. Two of Matt's good friends, Dave and Ryker, met us there, although they were cheering for BYU. They, and a few bites of Matt's corndog (the hand-dipped kind, seriously!!), were the highlights of the trip because the game was really lack luster. It was 7-0 Boise State til nearly the end of the 4th, to the point I started to root for BYU to score just to make it more interesting. End was 7-6. We had good seats in the endzone (even closer than our 2010 seats) except that we were behind the ONLY people in the whole section who were standing, so we had to stand the entire game. Lemme tell ya, I really notice it now being pregnant; it was tiring. We made the trip home on Friday but the drive seemed soooo much longer. I've decided I wouldn't want to drive cross-country, unless each day was only limited to 3hrs at most.

2012

Today, we went to Bend's Oktoberfest to the Wiener Dog Race, which we've been looking forward to all year. We've even practiced a few times with Ellie. I scream "Ellie B!!" and she sprints to me (usually across a little field). We had great plans for her victory today but alas, she got stage fright. When released from the race box, despite my screaming, she nearly immediately bolted for the side and tried to escape to find Matt. In the video, she's behind the E of Bend and she's the dog who goes straight toward the left then sits by the lady in white shorts/pink top. Bummer. In the coming year, we'll have to practice with more distractions.

I found out this week that our buddy Dave's wife, Lara, is only a few weeks behind us in her pregnancy, AND my friend Christine (who I spent a fair amount of time with when I lived in Eugene) is also only a week or two behind us in her pregnancy. Somehow knowing Christine is also pregnant makes me feel better. I've really been feeling lonely for some women to talk to about my pregnancy lately. I have some recently-new-mom friends and I have seasoned-mom friends, but I don't know anyone else actually first-time-pregnant right now. And I feel a little weird calling my mom-friends, who I always think of as being super busy, and asking what are probably really dumb questions. I'd really like to start taking some prenatal exercise classes if only to meet some other pregnant ladies.

I started thinking this week of that country song "You're Gonna Miss This." It always gets me. The premise of the song is that this woman is always looking forward to the next step (moving out of her parents' house, then having children, then having the children more grown) and her father reminds her that she may not know it now, but she's gonna miss where she is at the present moment and wish the days hadn't gone by so fast. This resonates with me because I do struggle to live in the present, usually looking ahead to the next thing. It can be hard to enjoy where we are now, even as I'm enjoying it. As I was taking a quiet bath, thinking about my growing belly and what was to come for our family, I realized that one day, I'll be taking a bath here and someone scream "MOMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!" and that'll be to me, and I'll look back on this peaceful evening and to some degree want it back. But it's hard to know all the things you'll miss before everything has changed in ways you can't predict, or know what you'll miss. But I'm trying to appreciate at least these things that I'm enjoying now:

• having the time (and sorta energy) to volunteer to coach GOTR without feeling any guilt of the time spent
• peaceful baths, and peaceful nights with bedtimes whenever we want
• uninterrupted pre-bed reading or tv viewing or WII playing
• uncensored moments with Matt whenever and wherever
• my pre-baby body (which is already slipping away), though really I'm looking forward to my post-baby body
• a few sexy outfits that I loved wearing as a hot newlywed but wonder if I'll feel the same about wearing as a hot mama
• money that, although we're already trying to save most, is still for our pleasure... money toward my new clothes, not a baby's
• the flexibility in not having to think about dinner until 5pm (to my detriment now, this is changing this week), or in feeling fine about having cereal for dinner
• the ease of leaving the house, or of grocery shopping, or of going to the gym, or really of doing anything at all
• Matt says he'll miss watching all the football he wants, and napping whenever we want